Many electronic and/or telecommunication services are provided by a plurality of electronic devices within a network. Exemplary services comprise mobile phone service, data processing, and distributed software applications. Support procedures for the services and the services themselves are divided into a plurality of tasks, for example, control tasks and resource tasks. The tasks are divided among the plurality of electronic devices. Service providers employ a client/server architecture to organize the electronic devices for control tasks and resource tasks. For example, a network controller distributes tasks to a plurality of network resources, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art.
To provide a high level of availability of the service to a user, requests for service must be handled quickly. In known networks, the network controller sends a request to a network resource, for example, a first network resource of the plurality of network resources. If the network resource does not respond in a timely manner or provides a response that indicates an error, the network controller must send an additional request to another network resource in an attempt to fulfill the request for service. For each additional request, service availability and management efficiency is reduced and service response times between a receipt of the request for service and a fulfillment of the request are increased.
Upon a failed response from a network resource, the network controller generates a system error. The network controller requires special software modules and/or triggers to detect the fault of the network resource and generate the system error. The software triggers merely react to a problem that has already occurred with the network resource and only do so when the network resource is needed for fulfillment of the request for service. In addition, service providers must purchase the special software triggers as extra modules to the control and resource tasks that provide the actual service. A technician of the network must analyze the system error and determine if the cause of the failed response was a failure of a network resource. If the network resource is found to be at fault, the technician must manually intervene to prevent further requests from being sent to the network resource. Time spent on analysis of the system error and manual intervention further decreases service availability and management efficiency.
Thus, a need exists for an increase in service availability and a decrease in service response times.